Flash Gordon

Don W. Moore, who wrote the Flash Gordon comic strip for 20 years and wrote scripts for such television favorites as Rawhide, Sea Hunt and Death Valley Days, died Monday in Venice. He was 81 years old. Mr. Moore had a long career as a magazine, newspaper and television writer and editor. His first effort at a television script was Captain Video. He graduated second in his class from Dartmouth in 1925 with a bachelor`s degree in English. He went to Miami, where his parents had retired, and took jobs with The Miami News and The Miami Beach Beacon.

When you set out to update old serials, as the Sci Fi Channel has done with its amiable new Flash Gordon series, you have the advantage, in a way, of a bar set low. Models hung from wires to represent spaceships, a suit of painted cardboard to say "robot," wooden acting - these are the pillars of your tradition. But it's a noble tradition too, one that demands not only respect for adventure as an end in itself but also respect for an audience willing to lavish its capacity for wonder on the meanest of materials.

When you set out to update old serials, as the Sci Fi Channel has done with its amiable new Flash Gordon series, you have the advantage, in a way, of a bar set low. Models hung from wires to represent spaceships, a suit of painted cardboard to say "robot," wooden acting - these are the pillars of your tradition. But it's a noble tradition too, one that demands not only respect for adventure as an end in itself but also respect for an audience willing to lavish its capacity for wonder on the meanest of materials.

Saturday afternoon was the usual summer steamer, but late in Florida Atlantic's practice Lawrence Gordon was still streaking up and down the field. Nicknamed "Flash" by the FAU coaches, a tired Gordon is still faster than most fresh players. That's one reason Gordon was lining up with the first team, as he has since spring practice. While there have been a few starters from last year who have been knocked from their spots going into Saturday's season opener at Hawaii, the biggest surprise is that Gordon has beaten out Quincy Skinner.

If you ever catch a performance by RI$K, you may or may not like their music -- a blend of heavy rock and dance music liberally laced with synthesizer. One thing is for sure, however. You won`t forget the band. Dressed in skin-tight Spandex and flowing capes in eye-popping reds, yellows, blues and golds -- with face paint to match -- the three young men look like a cross between Superman, Batman and Flash Gordon. Unforgetability is just what they`re aiming for, said band leader

Breeze didn't get the news it wanted, but it did get four new sails Wednesday. And that was enough to put it among the leaders in the International Measurement System class on the first day of the Cutty Sark Southern Ocean Racing Conference. On Friday morning the crew of the boat discovered that its rented truck had been stolen from its Fort Lauderdale hotel. According to crew member Lou Varney, 14 or 15 of the boat's sails were in the truck. Breeze was left with a mainsail and three headsails _ two light and one medium genoas.

You`re browsing in an art gallery when you say to yourself, "I tawt I taw a puddy tat." You did -- a hand-painted animation cel of Sylvester the cat. Art used in the making of cartoons -- cels (clear cellulose sheets on which characters are painted), pencil sketches and background paintings -- has become a hot collectible. Prices of cels produced by major studios in the `30s, `40s and `50s have climbed 200 percent to 300 percent in the past five years. For example, a cel of Grumpy from Walt Disney`s 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that went for $750 in 1980 now fetches about $2,500.

If you`re looking for something to keep your brain occupied tonight, while your eyes are focused on NBC`s new series The Highwayman, I have a suggestion. You can compile a list of all of the earlier, better movies and TV programs that the "creators" of this show have ransacked for ideas. Here`s some help, to get you started: First -- and most obvious -- is the Mad Max movie series starring Mel Gibson. Second, The A-Team. Third, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Fourth, The Fugitive. Fifth, any John Wayne war movie in which the villains were short, sneaky, Japanese agents.

You know who you are. When you pick up the morning paper, you don't go straight for the sports or world news sections. You go straight for that little multicolored, three-panel bit of heaven called the funnies. But does it sometimes seem the comics aren't living up to expectations? Are you tired of the same set of comics every day, all of which seem to have used the same tired joke every week since the '60s? (I'm generalizing here, some jokes date back only to the late '80s). Web comics may be the answer to your morning blues.

Given the scads of writers who pitch original movie ideas to studio executives every day in Hollywood, why does it sometimes seem as if everyone in town is on the same page? Two lava-spewing movies, 20th Century Fox's Volcano and Universal Pictures' Dante's Peak, vied for movie viewers in 1997. In 1988 came a couple of Earth-imperiled-by-flying-objects-from-space flicks (Disney's Armageddon and Paramount and DreamWorks SKG's Deep Impact) and two insect cartoons (Disney/Pixar's A Bug's Life and DreamWorks' Antz)

You know who you are. When you pick up the morning paper, you don't go straight for the sports or world news sections. You go straight for that little multicolored, three-panel bit of heaven called the funnies. But does it sometimes seem the comics aren't living up to expectations? Are you tired of the same set of comics every day, all of which seem to have used the same tired joke every week since the '60s? (I'm generalizing here, some jokes date back only to the late '80s). Web comics may be the answer to your morning blues.

Given the scads of writers who pitch original movie ideas to studio executives every day in Hollywood, why does it sometimes seem as if everyone in town is on the same page? Two lava-spewing movies, 20th Century Fox's Volcano and Universal Pictures' Dante's Peak, vied for movie viewers in 1997. In 1988 came a couple of Earth-imperiled-by-flying-objects-from-space flicks (Disney's Armageddon and Paramount and DreamWorks SKG's Deep Impact) and two insect cartoons (Disney/Pixar's A Bug's Life and DreamWorks' Antz)

Breeze didn't get the news it wanted, but it did get four new sails Wednesday. And that was enough to put it among the leaders in the International Measurement System class on the first day of the Cutty Sark Southern Ocean Racing Conference. On Friday morning the crew of the boat discovered that its rented truck had been stolen from its Fort Lauderdale hotel. According to crew member Lou Varney, 14 or 15 of the boat's sails were in the truck. Breeze was left with a mainsail and three headsails _ two light and one medium genoas.

One was a rugged fellow of the Roaring `20s, trapped in a cave and preserved in suspended animation by radioactive gases, who awakened in the 25th century. The other was a fair-haired polo player straight from the Ivy League who blasted into the universe with eccentric Dr. Zarkov to save Earth from a marauding comet. Long before Star Trek took TV viewers where no one had gone before, and before the Jedi sought revenge on the evil empire in the Star Wars trilogy, Depression-era audiences followed the exciting sci-fi exploits of this pair of outer-space heroes.

If you ever catch a performance by RI$K, you may or may not like their music -- a blend of heavy rock and dance music liberally laced with synthesizer. One thing is for sure, however. You won`t forget the band. Dressed in skin-tight Spandex and flowing capes in eye-popping reds, yellows, blues and golds -- with face paint to match -- the three young men look like a cross between Superman, Batman and Flash Gordon. Unforgetability is just what they`re aiming for, said band leader

Bang, bang ... gotcha, you`re dead. Since the Civil War, children have been playing shoot-`em-up with toy guns. In fact, the toy gun stands out as the one plaything most distinctly American. And with good reason. From colonial days through the 19th century, firearms were the principal tool that enabled us to subdue, settle and survive in this land. Firearms played a vital part in our fight for freedom from imperialism in our first turbulent century. The War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War were fought essentially with small arms.

BOCA RATON -- In the wee hours of Friday morning, the huge engines on the dredge off the shore of Spanish River Park lurched into action and the sand that some say is the answer to the city`s beach erosion problem began to spray ashore. "We got very, very good sand. There`s no rock in it. There are very few shells," said Rick Spadoni of Coastal Planning and Engineering, Inc., the city`s consultant on the project. After several start-up delays, the dredge will now pump 1,500 tons of sand ashore every hour around-the-clock for 30 to 45 days, Spadoni said.

Bang, bang ... gotcha, you`re dead. Since the Civil War, children have been playing shoot-`em-up with toy guns. In fact, the toy gun stands out as the one plaything most distinctly American. And with good reason. From colonial days through the 19th century, firearms were the principal tool that enabled us to subdue, settle and survive in this land. Firearms played a vital part in our fight for freedom from imperialism in our first turbulent century. The War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War were fought essentially with small arms.

BOCA RATON -- In the wee hours of Friday morning, the huge engines on the dredge off the shore of Spanish River Park lurched into action and the sand that some say is the answer to the city`s beach erosion problem began to spray ashore. "We got very, very good sand. There`s no rock in it. There are very few shells," said Rick Spadoni of Coastal Planning and Engineering, Inc., the city`s consultant on the project. After several start-up delays, the dredge will now pump 1,500 tons of sand ashore every hour around-the-clock for 30 to 45 days, Spadoni said.

If you`re looking for something to keep your brain occupied tonight, while your eyes are focused on NBC`s new series The Highwayman, I have a suggestion. You can compile a list of all of the earlier, better movies and TV programs that the "creators" of this show have ransacked for ideas. Here`s some help, to get you started: First -- and most obvious -- is the Mad Max movie series starring Mel Gibson. Second, The A-Team. Third, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Fourth, The Fugitive. Fifth, any John Wayne war movie in which the villains were short, sneaky, Japanese agents.